How to Upload Your Word Formatted Resume to LinkedIn

There's a cool app (called Box.net) for uploading your Word formatted resume to LinkedIn. It's a cinch and it's free. And the app makes it super easy for recruiters and employers to download your resume with one click.

For years recruiters have been able to search LinkedIn profiles, using keywords to identify qualified job seekers. Once on your profile page, they could read your profile and download it as a PDF.

Then, LinkedIn offered us a way to upload a Word formatted resume so employers can download it to their hard drives, enter it into their Applicant Tracking Systems (databases also known as ATS), and keep us on file for current and future job openings. How cool is that! And it even sends you a notice when someone downloads your document so you stay in the know.

Steps to Upload a Word Resume to Your LinkedIn Profile

This is easy. You can almost do it with your eyes closed.

Sign into your LinkedIn account.

In the pull-down menu at the top of the page, click Edit Profile under the Profile option.

Scroll down your profile page to the Applications section and click Add Applications.

Click on Box.net Files, which takes you to an introductory page with a slide show about the application. If you agree with the terms, click Add Application.

On the next page an icon of a folder will be shown. Move your mouse over the icon to find an arrow in the upper right corner. Click on the arrow and select Open from the pull-down menu.

On the next page you'll find a link to upload a document (such as your Word formatted resume) from your hard drive.

Of course for this to work you need to a resume on your hard drive to start with. (Don't have a resume yet? Check out my Ready-Made Resumes program.)

Once you've uploaded your resume or other file (bio, report, graph, or other impressive document), go back to your LinkedIn profile, where you should see the file's icon under the Files section. In my LinkedIn profile, you'll see SusanIrelandBio100-words.doc, which anyone can download.

Now that you have the Box.net application installed, you can easily upload, delete, and organize files directly from your LinkedIn profile page.